Cycling in the time of Corona

People will cycle out of fear of not taking tube/buses, drivers will still drive

Understood :)

Since the Government COVID-19 lockdown policy changes on Sunday 10th May the Peak District Mountain Rescue Organisation (PDMRO) have seen a significant rise in the number of callouts for their volunteers. The teams from Buxton, Derby, Edale, Glossop, Kinder, Oldham, and Woodhead along with Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation have been called Thirty-Seven times from 18th May - 31st May 2020 (inclusive) compared with only eight callouts for the same period in 2019, an increase of 362.5%.

The callouts have included 5 missing vulnerable person searches (three deceased), walkers with lower leg injuries, benighted walkers, unexploded ordnance from world-war II, injured Mountain Bikers, three climbing accidents (one fatal). These incidents have been dealt with in partnership with other emergency services including Police, Fire, Ambulance, Air
Ambulance, Army and the Peak District National Park Rangers.

All Mountain Rescue Teams in England and Wales are made up entirely of unpaid volunteers who receive no Government funding and rely entirely on the donations of the public. Working to industry standards for Search and Rescue in the UK, during the COVID-19 pandemic the teams are also having to include the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect against the risk of infection. This added burden means the addition of extra layers of clothing and equipment, making an already difficult job more challenging.

As the lockdown measures ease further the teams will be able to start re-instating training and business meetings which along with more callouts will add to their commitments for the coming months. However many fundraising opportunities have already been cancelled and more will still not be able to go ahead in the future. You can help PDMRO and it’s teams by planning your outings; limiting the risks taken; taking enough provisions including map, compass and torches; wearing the right attire such as footwear and weather-appropriate clothing; not using open flames, BBQs or discarding used cigarette ends in the countryside; finding your local teams and following them on social media for the latest advice in your area, and of course consider donating to help them continue to provide their services throughout the year.

If you require Mountain Rescue in an emergency, dial 999 or 112 and ask for the Police, then Mountain Rescue

From PDMRO facebook

Yeah, but we're talking about the cycle lanes.

More people will use the cycle lanes, that's good for them. Those of us that have been dealing with drivers for the last 30 years and are moving substantially quicker aren't going to want to sit in queues of other cyclists. I quite like the fully separate bike lanes near Ealing common that allow passing of slower riders but if you start sticking bollards up, or raising curbs, then that becomes a problem.

I really like the cycle lane the put in at the top of Ealing Common but all this temporary coned off stuff is a bit, I dunno, I'm not even sure if some of it is for widening footpaths or for cycling in. I know it's a rush job and I'm happy for any pro-cycling change and it's not like I'll be doing much commuting going forward so, fuck it.

The callouts have included 5 missing vulnerable person searches (three deceased)

Eek. And how are you supposed to rescue people while maintaining social distancing?

Probably worth saying that there has been a period of almost unprecedented good weather. But still.

Those of us that have been dealing with drivers for the last 30 years and are moving substantially quicker aren't going to want to sit in queues of other cyclists.

1000%

Yeah and those of us been riding with drivers for years can pop out of the bollards and keep riding with the drivers.
Yes some may hoot and gesticulate to get in the cycle lane. That's their problem not mine.

In fact designer Brian Deegan expects faster riders to ride with the drivers letting the nodders to move at their own chosen pace

Is there a map anywhere showing the temporary cycle lanes in London?

Edit: found this, but not sure how comprehensive it is https://www.sustrans.org.uk/space-to-move/

Ended up sharing road with chaingang of about ten choppers on last night’s ride in the countryside. No club or team colours.

AFAIK that’s neither safe nor inline with current restrictions.

I slightly resent it as the vast majority of riders I know (whilst disregarding the hour limit rule) are not group riding.

it's not completely comprehensive but you can fill in a form to notify Sustrans of anything new.

Chain gang is certainly not okay. If you're in the UK, though, there's no hour limit

Yeah, I meant that they disregarded the hour limit (when it applied).

There wasn't an hour limit - I think Gove flippantly mentioned something like it though

There was in Wales I believe. But never in England.

Was an hour mentioned as an example of ‘close to home’ perhaps? I certainly took 1 hour to be in the spirit of the law but perhaps I was wrong.

I don’t begrudge anyone for ignoring Michael Gove :)

It was a passing reference by Michael Gove to a question about how non-binding governmental guidance should be interpreted. Since then elevated into a hard-and-fast rule by haters of cyclists and rule-loving masochists who just can't get enough rules to follow.

The regulations themselves (for England) didn't regulate where you could go to exercise, how often you could exericse, how long you could exercise for, or anything else - leaving your house for exercise was legal, full stop.

Yeah the wording was something like that - 'in your local area' or 'close to home' or something. This was in the guidelines rather than the regulations I think.

^^ I could have really used this printed and stuck to my top tube.

I went into 2020 with some goals. I planned three 300 km in a day rides in increasing levels of difficulty. Get the easy one done and if that's ok move onto the harder one etc.

Then in March I got ill. I was out of commission apart from a couple of short rides when i thought I was better but, as it turned out I wasn't. My fitness dropped and in the meantime we went into lockdown. My goals went out of the window. They needed to be completed by the end of July to allow maximum daylight.

Once recovered, I started to ride. Every day I rode 33km (apart from a couple of days on which I had mechanicals which curtailed my rides. As soon as they announced that we could ride longer, I upped my rides at weekends. In May I rode every day and a total of 1562 km. Not massive but pretty decent. My longest ride was only 106 km.

I am certainly fitter than I was. I started from a low base after my illness.

But one thing that seems strange is that my HR can no longer get above 130 bpm. On Sunday i rode 105 km with 827 m of climbing (so flat to undulating) at an average HR of 99 bpm and a max of 127.

My usual max is around 160 or so which is close to the notional max for my age. My resting HR is in the low 40s.

Am I just knackered? I can hardly be over trained. 33 km a day cannot constitute over training.

I don't really want to take days off because I really enjoy getting out of the house for a ride. Should I just slow it right down for a couple of days? Or just accept that my heart is pumping just as fast as it needs to pump and throw away my HR monitor and splash out on a power meter instead?

My goals are now postponed until next year. This year i want to consolidate my fitness and keep increasing length of ride so that the move up to 300 km in a day is simple when I do it next year.

Sounds like overtraining to me, or more right balance between exercise and resting.

@WornCleat

33 km a day cannot constitute over training.

Perhaps you’ve become accustomed to riding those 33km quite hard? When change is gradual it can go unnoticed. Are you sleeping ok?

I would do two or three days where you only ride ~ 20k or so and (importantly) you keep the effort very low. Zone 2, whatever low road speed that happens to be.

Thinking of giving this LEJOG (spartan wild camping, food + water from garages etc.) a go as soon as possible as it's the most 'exotic' holiday I can come up with in these fair isles. I'm thinking that would probably be the point at which we are allowed to stay away from home? Open question of how to get back to London though if Public Transport is still being advised against.

Feels like could be one of best times to do it given the drop in traffic levels.

Is there a drop in traffic levels?

Touché, from some googling it looks like we're already pretty much back at pre lockdown levels. Heck, it may even be worse than usual soon at this rate...